Hidden Realities of Educational Outreach

On October 9^th 2010 Carnegie Hall will present an evening of music with Alexander Markov.  Alexander Markov is an internationally acclaimed Violinist and preeminent pioneer in rock and roll.  Markov’s concert will feature a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto and an original Rock Concerto composed by Alexander Markov and James Remington. 

The National Endowment for the Arts 2008 survey suggests that only 35% of all adults in the United States attended an Arts event.  Of the roughly 75 million Americans that attended an arts event only 9% attended a classical music concert and 2% attended an opera.  The findings of the NEA survey suggest that the classical music industry is in crisis and fewer people are “consuming” classical music and art.  In addition, the survey also states that the average age of classical music audiences is rapidly increasing.  As the current audience ages and becomes less mobile classical music venues are scrambling to engage younger audiences.  In New York City classical music venues, jazz ensembles, and music teachers have partnered to provide students with opportunities to experience live classical performances, jazz concerts, and meet and greets.  Carnegie Hall in Particular has been a leader in educational outreach and is dedicated to building an appreciation of classical music in children and young adults.

Bayside High School is one of a handful of public high schools in New York City that offers students the opportunity to study music and graduate with an advanced regents diploma with a sequence in music.  Students enrolled at the Bayside Academy of Music successfully complete a basic audition on an instrument of their choice; take a sequence of classes the build musicianship, performance skills, and creative thinking.  Within four years of enrollment students perform in the Annual New York State School Music Association Competition and are required to take the New York State Regents Exam for Music.  The quality of instruction, creativity of the teachers, and educational environment support the students to succeed.  In 2009,  91% of the students that took the New York State Regents Exam in Music passed with a 65% or higher, while only 81% of the students passed the classes.  In addition, students enrolled in the Concert Choir and Belt Boulevard participated in the Bernstein Mass Project with the Baltimore Symphony and performed “Too Hot To Handel”, a contemporary gospel arrangement of Handel’s  “The Messiah”, at Carnegie Hall. 

The successes of past performances have given Bayside High School a positive reputation. As a result, Bayside High School continues to develop a strong partnership with Carnegie Hall with performance opportunities and outreach programs.  On Wednesday, September 22^nd Carnegie Hall hosted a free performance demo by Alexander Markov.  The performance demo was engaging and exciting for the students and highlighted excerpts from his performance at Carnegie Hall.  Markov tries to promote an appreciation for classical music by performing rock and roll on a customized electric violin.

Markov’s performance uncovered several questions regarding music as cultural industry, the political implications of outreach programs, the impact of technology on audience participation, and the dichotomy that exists between classical music and rock and roll.

Music as Cultural Industry

Marcuse through Giroux (2009) posits that cultural products like the arts “often exclude the principles of resistance and opposition that once informed their relationship with the world and simultaneously exposed the inherent embodiment of the dominant culture”.   Furthermore, the mechanized work environment has established a clear distinction between work and play (Giroux, 2009).  The highly mechanized process of academia has designated music and the arts as extensions of the work process.  By reducing musical performance and consumption to the status of amusement and diminishing the role of critical thought in the musical process, a technocratic society does not escape work but rather conforms and continues to dichotomize work and play (Giroux, 2009).   As critical music educators we must struggle to uncover the meanings and hidden meanings of musical compositions in relation to the historical process in which it evolved.

Markov’s outreach performance functioned as a relief from the hyper structured school day and provoked little critical thought.   Despite the creative and engaging musical composition the overwhelming narrative was about improving youthful attendance at classical music concerts.  Furthermore, one may suggest that many classical musicians and educators have established a hierarchy of listening that claims creative superiority over all forms of music.  A reoccurring theme presented during the outreach program was about learning classical music as a gateway to rock and roll, thereby reinforcing the notion of musical superiority.   As Giroux (2009) stated, “culture has become another industry, one which not only produced goods but also legitimated the logic of capital and its institutions.”

Impact of Technology on Audience Participation

Programs partnerships implemented by performing arts venues seek to expose children and young adults to “quality performances” and inspire children to become musicians.  However, little research exists to support such a claim and many similar advocacy campaigns carry significant political baggage.  Advocacy campaigns implemented by musical venues are designed to increase audience participation, legitimize programs, and strengthen social, economic, and political capital. 

During the presentation, a student asked what are your musical influences?  Markov quickly responded, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, and Pagannini.  Niccolo Paganini was presented as the first “rock star” violinist in history and explained how people would attend concerts just to hear him play.  As a result, I pose the following question.  To what extent does western classical performance practice marginalize audience participants and create distinct classes of participants?

Prior to 1900 concert attendance was dependent upon economic wealth and social capital.  In addition, musical performances conducted by amateur musicians and community performance troupes were considered inferior.   However, members of the working class were aware of Paganini’s status but did not possess the resources to see him perform live.  Therefore, in order to consume such music one must become a performer or support a local performance troupe. The development of audio recording increased accessibility and transformed the way communities consumed music.  However, technological advancement consolidated power and disenfranchised amateur and community musicians and performance troupes.  As a result, society experienced a decline in musical participation and began passively consuming music as a cultural product.

Towards a Rock and Roll Pedagogy

To be Continued….

The Politics of Lesson Planning

I often refer to the American Public School System as the largest; most developed, and unbalanced political institution in the United States.  Such a statement however, is accompanied with great fear and skepticism from the American public.  However, active citizenship and political participation is the backbone of a free society and a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. 

Over the past ten years the United States Congress and the Department of Education have played an increasing role in the development of school curriculums, assessments, and teaching practices through increased federal aid and legislation.  Such reforms were passed with broad bipartisan support and acceptance from the general public.   As a result one may suggest that decisions governing classrooms, grading policies, assessment procedures, and core content have been outsourced to government sanctioned experts, politicians, media activists, and members of the business community.

The current discourse surrounding education focuses on educational droughts, data collected from objective and standardized tests, and the prospect of America losing power and influence in a globalized economy.  Rarely are the talents and assets of students and teachers the focal point of our educational system.  Kincheloe and Steinberg (1998) suggest that teachers have been stripped of their ability to be scholars and reduced to passive practitioners. Furthermore, one can posit that students are often viewed as economic components, rather than active and contributing members of a progressive and democratic society.  Such conceptualizations of education promote passive acceptance of prescribed knowledge and impede the development of a “free” public school system  that “celebrates human ways of knowing that are logical but also intuitive, emotional, and empathetic” (Kincheloe and Steinberg, 1998).

As pre-service and in-service teachers we must be willing and prepared to enter into politics as empowered scholars with rigor. However, teachers often silence their own voice by not engaging in the political process and remaining silent out of fear of retribution.  Many American’s are afraid of politically active teachers and reject proposed ideas, practical knowledge, and research that serve the best interest of their students and greater community. As a profession of scholars we must struggle to reestablish and recreate an educational system that empowers, engages, and stimulates inquiry, exploration, and innovation. We must become teachers-as-researchers (Kincheloe and Steinberg, 1998)

The field of music education is a diverse academic discipline. One may argue that music education, as a legitimate academic discipline is a relatively new concept in contemporary education.  While music teachers must be prepared to be advocates and political leaders, the profession is relatively underdeveloped from a pedagogical standpoint.  Many teachers utilize methods that are rooted in ancient practice and not grounded in contemporary research or philosophy. Consequently, current methods of instruction are firmly rooted in the culture of modernist positivism (Kincheloe and Steinberg, 1998).  Musical Methods of Pedagogy like Kodaly, Music Learning Theory, Orff, Suzuki, and Dalcroze maintains a teacher centered curriculum, works to objectify students and achievement, prescribes remedies for perceived deficits, and views music education as a static discipline based on scientific or behavioral sequences. 

As Contemporary Music Educators dedicated reconstructing music education we must employ a curriculum that empowers musicianship, honors the identity and perspective of the students, and liberates music from a euro-centric philosophical paradigm. Utilizing the theoretical framework of Critical Pedagogy, teachers and students can engage in a transformative and creative pedagogy. Critical Pedagogy teaches us to name, unlearn, and relearn the complexities of teaching and learning (Wink, 2008).  As political leaders, music educators must engage in a pedagogy that respects the cultural politics of the classroom, reconstructs power relationships in learning communities, and explores the “contradictions and disjunctions of human existence” (Darder,Baltodano,Torres, 2009).

The Critical Pedagogy for Music Education Lesson Plan Model as developed by Dr. Frank Abrahams (2010) provides a basic template and structure to organize transformative classroom lessons.  Originally designed as an eight-step model, the CPME Lesson Plan bridges the theoretical concepts of Critical Pedagogy with the brain-based research of Bernice McCarthy’s 4MAT Learning System. 

In 2009 the CPME Lesson Plan Model was transformed and closely resembles the sequence of instruction proposed by Zoltan Kodaly.  The current model proposed by Dr. Abrahams dialectically bridges the authorized curriculum with opportunities for radical teachers and students to engage critically in classroom content (Darder, Baltodano, Torres, 2009).  However, the current CPME Lesson Plan Model contains a step that dichotomizes libratory practices and creates an opportunity for teachers to advance the hidden curriculum and dominant discourse of legitimized and institutionalized knowledge.

The systematic process and philosophical framework of the CPME Lesson Plan Model encourages teachers and students to begin the pedagogical process by problem posing, sharing experience, and welcoming the student’s reality into the process of inquiry.  The second phase however, calls upon the teacher to prescribe a sequence of lesson steps and connect the world of the student to the world of the classroom.   However, one may posit that educational prescription is a loaded term and a verb of power.  When one uncovers the internalized power of prescription, the dichotomy between prescriptive teaching and sound praxial pedagogy become clear and hidden meaning becomes manifest. As a Critical Teacher one may intentionally develop a sequence of instruction that presents content and empowers students to become investigators that question and challenge the authority of the presented knowledge.  As knowledge is interrogating the students and teacher are simultaneously reconstructing knowledge to be reexamined in the future. Therefore, knowledge production becomes a dynamic, political, and democratic process that reoccurs throughout the historical process.

Critical Pedagogues of all academic disciplines, especially music educators must be cognoscente of power relations and committed to freedom of thought, language, and perspective.  As we struggle to empower musicianship in our students we must continue to question the authority of legitimized and institutionalized knowledge and build a curriculum that engages the students as vocational members of the historical process.